| Beautiful Butterfly Orchid -- Impressions of the Shanghai Oriental Art Center |
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| Date:26/08/2006 |
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By Dai Qian
At the intersection of Clove Street and
Century Avenue in the Pudong New Area stands the Shanghai Oriental Art Center.
It features unique architectural elements that make it stand out from
surrounding buildings.
It covers 23,161 square meters with a floor space of
39,964 square meters. It is architecturally bold and equipped with advanced
facilities to serve its main purpose - being the high-brow art
venue.
Beautiful Butterfly Orchid
Different from
the Pudong New Area Government Building, which is a massive rectangular
structure, and from the Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology, which spread
out along a horizontal plane and features overlapping straight-line elements,
the Shanghai Oriental Art Center is characterized by soft and gentle curves. It
consists of five hemisphere-shaped structures ranging from the foundation to the
roof. It rises up from the ground to the sky. The five hemisphere structures,
which are strung together by a glass curtain wall, are the main entrance, the
Oriental Opera Theater, the Exhibition Hall, the Oriental Music Hall and the
Oriental Performance Hall. Looking like five petals that are different in sizes
and are not totally symmetrical, they resemble a butterfly orchid in full bloom.
Outstanding Functions
The Shanghai Oriental Art Center's facilities
easily meet the needs for staging symphony, ballet, musical, opera and Chinese
opera performances. It is among the world's best art performance
buildings.
It has a performance area consisting of a symphony hall that can
seat 1,953 people, an opera hall with 1,020 seats, a smaller performance hall
that can seat 333 people and a rehearsal and training area. Besides, there is an
exhibition hall and other facilities such as cafes, which offer quality services
to make the audience comfortable.
High-tech
Features
CAT Control System, the best stage equipment
computerized central control system, which is presented by Wagnerbi &
Rogsenberg Corp, has been installed in the center. The system needs no hard
discs and features the fast-storage mode, which can prevent virus attacks and
voltage losses. It is free of hidden risks such as loss of data or damage to the
hard discs. It can be operated under simulation mode. Moreover, people can
respond to any hitch from the installer's headquarters.
All the equipment in
acoustics, fiber optical control, video system, illumination and engineering
facilities are produced by world-class brand names.
Advanced
Management Mode
The Shanghai Oriental Art Center is managed and
operated by the Shanghai Oriental Art Center Management Co., Ltd., which is
co-founded by the Beijing Poly Culture and Arts Corporation and the Shanghai
Wenhui Xinmin United Newspaper Group. The operators intend to make the center a
top cultural and entertainment venue that makes people "enjoy arts and enjoy the
services.'' The ultimate goal is to make it the most advanced fine arts center
in the country, one of the best in Asia and well-known in the world.
An art
committee is set up in the center, which is the first of its kind in China. The
committee sets itself a goal of "letting Chinese programs debut in the world
theaters and foreign programs debut in China." It is also aiming to cultivate a
contingent of performance agents that knows the world performing market well. It
is also trying to make the center into a performance venue that is full of
novelty. The committee is composed of conductors, musicians, directors, singers,
art management specialists and producers. The center plans to introduce the
schedule of performance seasons to emulate most theaters in Europe and the
United States, starting from 2006. In each performance season, the performances
to be staged should be arranged according to the central theme of the season. In
the period other than performance seasons, music weeks and art promotion
activities will be arranged.
The center became operational on December 31,
2004, on a trial basis. Formal operation will begin on July 1,
2005.
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